


White Russian Christmas

by Mertiya



Series: Hooked [2]
Category: Splinter Cell (Video Games)
Genre: Andriy and Sam are still dysfunctional human beings, But it turns out Sarah is good for them, Christmas Fluff, Family, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fishin, Fluff, Gift Giving, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-01
Updated: 2016-01-01
Packaged: 2018-05-10 22:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5602762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Sarah comes home a day early, and Sam's worlds collide in an explosion of drugs and Christmas cheer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Russian Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rastaban](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rastaban/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Devil You Know](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2769872) by [Rastaban](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rastaban/pseuds/Rastaban). 



            “Hey, Sam?”

            “Not now, Charlie.”

            Grim paused, looking over Fisher’s shoulder. When she had called him into Paladin for a quick debriefing, she had not expected them to fall into full mission-planning mode, and she felt slightly guilty. Sam had said he was mostly free until tomorrow, but Sam Fisher would work through mandated shore leave if given the choice.

            “Uh, I really think you’re gonna want to know about this, boss.”

            Sam looked up with a faint grimace, pinching his forehead with two fingers in a way Grim knew meant that he was starting to get a headache. She made a mental note not to allow him any stimulants. This mission had not yet hit the critical stages. “What _is_ it?”

            “There’s, um, a voicemail from your daughter on your phone?”

            Most people would have missed the minute tightening of the muscles in Sam’s neck, but Grim had worked with him for long enough to see them. “Damn,” Sam said. “Nothing wrong?”

            “Well…” Charlie hedged. “She says she got done with her retreat a day early and she, uh, is going to head over…now.”

            Not many people had seen Sam Fisher in full panic mode. Grim felt almost privileged. His hand tightened convulsively on the plastic stylus he was holding, and it snapped in half with a sad little noise. “How long ago was that message left?” he asked quickly.

            Charlie shuffled his feet. “Um,” he said in a small voice. “Possibly about five hours ago?”

            “What,” said Sam.

            “Well, I wasn’t checking very often, since you said you didn’t want to be disturbed, and—”

            “Never mind, not your fault,” Sam said. “Grim, chart me the fastest route back to my front door.” He hit something on his phone and put it back to his ear, the furrow deepening between his eyebrows.

            Grim couldn’t suppress a quiet chuckle, but she went to find a metro map. “You won’t want to drive,” she said. “The traffic is terrible.”

            “Right,” said Sam distractedly. “Thanks. Grim, do you need me for anything else?”

            “Nothing urgent,” Grim replied. “Just go home, Sam. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, anyway.”

            She and Charlie exchanged glances with Briggs. There was another bet at stake here—was Andriy going to be back on Paladin for Christmas or not? She’d taken the outside chance that he wasn’t, and she grinned inwardly, because Sarah had just improved her odds quite a bit. From the wary look on Briggs’ face, he thought so as well. Either way, Grim thought, this situation had the potential to be very good for Sam, and then wondered when she’d become so invested in the success of his relationship with Paladin’s least orthodox occupant.

* * *

            Sarah Fisher sighed as she dragged her rollerboard up her father’s gravel driveway. The retreat had been significantly more painful than she’d expected, and she was glad to be able to get away. Dad probably wouldn’t have made it home yet, she considered, thoughfully—he usually showed up exactly when they’d planned and no earlier. He worked too hard, she thought ruefully, but she supposed that if she had a job on which the safety and security of her country rested, she wouldn’t take that many breaks either.

            Gratefully, she let herself in the side door and into the kitchen. She could use a stiff drink, especially if she was going to be telling her dad about Maryam. She could just phone him, she supposed, but this was really more of an in-person conversation. At least they hadn’t been dating long enough to be considering spending Christmas together, because telling her father about her new girlfriend before he actually met her was a plus. Probably, anyway.

            She opened the liquor cabinet and raised an eyebrow. Not that her father kept a lot of variety, but there was usually more than a single bottle of wine in there. Suddenly suspicious, Sarah looked around the kitchen and saw several smudges of what looked like fresh mud on the floor—also not something Dad was likely to leave. Okay, she was probably paranoid, but with Dad’s job and the tendency of someone to want to kidnap one or the other of them, she figured being a little paranoid was better than the alternative.

            Calmly, she checked under the sink—the emergency gun was still there. Good. She pulled it out and checked it over to make sure it was loaded and the safety was on, then headed down the hallway with it pointed at the ground, checking the rooms and the closets large enough for a person as she went.

            The door of the bathroom next to her father’s bedroom was open, and the light was on, the first real indication that something was off. She poked a head in very carefully, but it was empty. The medicine cabinet was open, though, and it looked as if someone had been rifling through it. Weird. Maybe someone had been trying to find drugs? There wasn’t much in there, though; Sarah had a recent prescription for Ambien, but it wasn’t kept at this house, and whatever stuff her father was on was _definitely_ not kept here.

            But with no one in here—that pretty much left the bedroom. Sarah toed off her shoes to walk more quietly and slipped out of the bathroom. The bedroom door was shut, and no light filtered from underneath it. She considered leaving it that way and calling her father, but decided against it, for two reasons. One, he hadn’t called her back, which meant he was probably working on something important, and two—Sarah didn’t want to have to rely on her father for everything. She might not be a highly-trained government operative, but she wasn’t totally incompetent either. All she was going to do was take a look.            

            Taking a deep breath, she turned the knob and silently eased the door open. Although the light wasn’t on, there was enough light filtering in from the streetlights outside for her to see her father’s bedroom pretty well. It was a lot messier than she had expected, and not in the way that someone breaking in would leave. There were clothes scattered across the floor, along with one or two condom wrappers, and the bed wasn’t empty.

            Sarah leaned against the wall and started giggling uncontrollably. She felt uncomfortably like Goldilocks for a minute, before she managed to gather herself together and head over to the bed, squinting at its occupant.

            A man. Well, she hadn’t expected that. He looked older than she’d expected as well, although that was less surprising, given Dad’s age. Not what she’d have thought of as Dad’s type, though—the man’s bare chest was covered in scars and tattoos, and his facial hair apparently hadn’t decided whether it wanted to be a scrubby beard or just stubble. She was just starting to get suspicious again when she saw what one of the tattoos was of. Was that really—she leaned forward, trying to get a better look in the dim half-light—and his eyes snapped open, staring at her in confusion.

            “Uh,” said Sarah. His eyes darted up and down her form, and then he was moving far faster than she’d thought he would—but she should have expected it from someone Dad knew—and she was on the floor looking up at him, and Dad’s gun was in his hand.

            “Who the fuck—”

* * *

            All the lights were on.

            Sam raced up the drive at top speed, pausing only to look in the window—and stopped dead, panting with relief at the sight of Sarah perched on the arm of the couch in the jeans and old Evanescence t-shirt she often wore to travel in. She was smiling and talking to someone sprawled across the sofa. As Sam’s gaze traveled from his daughter to the person she was talking to, he was struck with a forcible sense of surreality.

            Kobin’s head was tilted back—in laughter or possibly in weariness, Sam couldn’t tell. In the hours since Sam had seen him last, he’d at least managed to pull on a shirt and some vibrant purple shorts, though the shirt gaped open in front, and he was barefoot. The entire scene was nothing that Sam had expected, but at least better than some of the things he’d been afraid of coming back to.

            Still, this wasn’t exactly ideal, Sam thought in frustration. He loved his daughter and treasured his time spent with her, and never, never wanted that time to mix with the time he spent on board Paladin. He sighed. There was nothing to do at this point except damage control.

            He deliberately opened the door noisily to alert his daughter and his—boyfriend—that he was there.

            “Dad!” Sarah called. “We’re in the living room!”

            Very deliberately, Sam took off his shoes and his coat, hung up the coat and put the shoes underneath the coathook, then took a deep breath and headed into the living room.

            “Hey, Fish,” Andriy said, oddly subdued. He gave Sam a smile as he sipped something warm from one of their coffee mugs, but his hand was shaking slightly, and his eyes were glassy.

            “Your _boyfriend_ had a nightmare,” Sarah said sternly. Sam’s stomach sank at the frown she flashed him. She didn’t like Andriy, then.

            “Sarah—” he said awkwardly.

            “So I made him a White Russian,” she continued. “I told him he couldn’t have any of my Ambien, but do you have anything to help him sleep?”

            Sam shot Kobin a look. Judging from the looseness of his face, the other man had ignored Sarah’s refusal and slipped some of the Ambien when she wasn’t looking. Kobin gave him a hopeful smile, but the smile slipped off his face as he saw Sam’s face. “Hey, uh,” he said. “Thanks for the drink, Sarah, but I should really get going now. Uh, you know. Don’t want to intrude.”

            Sarah’s lips thinned even more. “You’re not intruding,” she said quickly.

            “Sarah—” Sam said awkwardly.

            “When were you planning on telling me, Dad?” she asked, in a bright, annoyed voice.

            “Well, um…”

            “Andriy, do you mind waiting for a minute?” Sarah asked. “I want to talk to my dad for a minute in private.”

            “I can…go…” Sam’s heart twinged with guilt at the hollow sound of Kobin’s voice, and he shook his head. This was his fault, not Andriy’s.

            “No, stay,” he said, forcing a smile. “We’ll just be a minute.”

            “Seriously, man—”

            “Oh my fucking god,” Sarah cut in. “Andriy, we were having a great time until my dad came back and everything got awkward.” Sam blinked. Wait, what? “Dad,” she continued, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Other room, now. Andriy, don’t you dare go anywhere.”

            Kobin laughed, a little of the tension leaving his voice as he held up his hands. “Okay, Sarochka.” He paused and winced, sending a quick glance toward Sam, but Sam had no idea what he was getting at, so he just shrugged and followed Sarah into the kitchen.

            “Look, Sarah, I’m sorry,” he said as the door swung shut behind them. “I wasn’t expecting you home until tomorrow. He wouldn’t have been here anymore—”

            “Jesus, Dad, seriously? You _still_ weren’t going to tell me?”

            “What?”

            “You have a _boyfriend_ , Dad! That is the kind of information that your daughter should _know_ about!”           

            “Um,” said Sam. This reaction had not been on his radar. “You don’t—dislike him?”

            “He seems nice,” Sarah said. “Actually, for someone dating _you_ , he’s surprisingly good at conversation. But seriously, Dad, first of all, that’s not fair to me. And it’s not fair to _him_ , and it was also really fucking dangerous, because you nearly got my ass shot when he woke up out of a PTSD nightmare to find me standing over him with the emergency gun!”

            Sam had to rein his imagination in fiercely, to prevent any reaction other than a slight anxious increase in breathing. “You weren’t supposed to be home—”

            “That is so not the point. How long have you two been together?”

            “Ah—” Sam paused. To an extent, he’d been avoiding thinking about this. “Around eight months now?”

            “Oh my god,” Sarah said. “He thinks you’re ashamed of him.”

            “I’m not _ashamed_ of him!” Sam protested. “Did he say that to you?”

            “Of course not, he just keeps offering to _leave_. Are you really that dense?”

            Sam sighed and leaned against the counter. “All right,” he said levelly. “I seem to have fucked this up. I met him through—work—and it didn’t seem—I didn’t want to bring my work home.”

            Sarah tapped her foot at him. “I know you try to keep your work and your time with me separate,” she said, “but if he’s your boyfriend, he doesn’t exactly count as work anymore, no matter how you met him.”

            “I—suppose that’s true.” Sam winced, thinking back to the apologetic look on Andriy’s face as he’d entered. “Shit.”

            “Go apologize,” Sarah said sternly. “By the way, I’m dating somebody, too, her name’s Maryam, and I feel a lot less weird about telling you now that I know _you’re_ not straight.”

            “Oh,” said Sam, quietly.

            “Of course, I feel a lot _more_ weird now than I would if I hadn’t _seen your boyfriend naked this evening_ ,” Sarah hissed as he headed for the door. “Jesus, Dad.”

            He had to laugh at that. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, kiddo.”

            When they reached the living room again, Andriy was staring down into his mug with a look on his face that Sam couldn’t read. “So, um,” Sam said, as they entered. There were a lot of things he wanted to say, but as usual, he wasn’t entirely sure how to phrase them, so he walked over to Andriy, touched him on the shoulder, and, when he looked up, kissed him lightly on the lips. “Sorry,” he said.

            Kobin blinked at him in surprise. “For what?” he asked in confusion.

            “Not introducing you two,” Sam responded, after an uncomfortable silence.

            Some of Andriy’s usual smugness returned, and his mouth twisted into a smirk. “Well, yeah, you introducing us would’ve probably been less awkward. Or at least you warning me she was coming home. I would have done some stuff differently. Put on clothes, for example.”

            “So, Andriy,” Sarah said, with a laugh, “do you have Christmas plans?”

            “Ah—” Again, that sudden subdued look. “—not exactly.” His eyes slid to the side. “Not with anyone, anyway.”

            Sam shut his eyes. He knew that look. That was Andriy’s “I totally wasn’t going to do a lot of drugs and shut myself in my quarters at all” look. Fuck. Sam had really screwed this entire thing up. He should have been paying a lot more attention to how Kobin was feeling. Maybe his ex-wife had had a point about some of the things she’d listed on the divorce proceedings.

            “Why don’t you do Christmas with us, then?” Sarah asked.

            Kobin choked on his White Russian, turning purple in a valiant effort not to spew milk and vodka across the couch. “Fuck—oh—um—I don’t wanna—”

            “Yeah,” Sam put in, almost before he knew he was going to. “Why don’t you?”

            Andriy stared at him. “You, uh, you want me to spend Christmas with you guys?”

            “It seems—appropriate.” More importantly, Sam suddenly wanted him here for Christmas. Andriy shouldn’t be spending Christmas by himself, whether or not he was going to get himself completely fucked up. Of course, the fact that he had been planning to was yet another reason that Sam wanted to keep an eye on the idiot.

            He couldn’t read the expression on Kobin’s face. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen that particular expression on the man’s face, in fact. “Um,” said Andriy. “I don’t have presents for anyone?”

            “Hilariously, neither do I,” Sarah said. “I haven’t had a chance to do my Christmas shopping yet. Why don’t we do that together? We can get my dad back for not introducing us.”

            Again that strange flicker in Andriy’s eyes. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Okay. Sure. Fish, you good with that?”

            For a moment, the world seemed to hang in the balance. On the one hand was still that clear, simple separation that Sam had grown used to; Sam’s commander role versus his father role. But Andriy had always had a way of blurring his boundaries. He leaned forward and gave Kobin an intent look. “Yes,” he said, easily. “I’m good with that.”

* * *

            Andriy Kobin had spent a lot of his time drinking and getting high with other illegal arms dealers, flying a top-secret American spy plane, and, when all else failed, getting into shoot-outs with large numbers of people who wanted to kill him. What he had never done before was go Christmas shopping with his boyfriend’s daughter, and he was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to be as nervous about that as about potentially-lethal weapons deals. He’d still had to pop a valium before going. Good thing Sarah was driving; he’d probably have been okay to drive, but Fish would’ve killed him if he’d found out.

            The last two days also ranked pretty high on his weirdness meter, and he had a really fucked up weirdness meter. But there was just something about waking up from a nightmare to find the woman whose death you’d faked standing over you with a gun. Fuck, he was glad he’d recognized her, because if he’d shot Fisher’s daughter—Kobin shuddered. Sarah hadn’t screamed or anything—she’d just held up her hands and said something soothing to him. Not that he had a clue what it was, because his brain hadn’t deciphered the words properly. It _had_ been enough to get him to realize where the fuck he was and put the gun down before starting to apologize for fifteen minutes straight.

            And Sarah had just—made him a White Russian and taken him out to the living room to chat. Nice kid. Calm kid. He supposed she must inherit some of Sam’s ridiculous poise, though she was way more talkative than he was.

            “So, do you have any idea what you’re going to get Dad?” Sarah asked as she parked the car in front of the local mall.

            Kobin laughed nervously. “Not so much,” he responded. “I, uh, haven’t really done Christmas in a while.”

            “He’s kind of hard to shop for,” Sarah said speculatively. “How did you guys meet? That can be a good way to figure out a present.”

            “Uhhhh,” said Kobin. Somehow, ‘he tried to kill me because he knew I had faked your death’ didn’t sound like the best way to explain it. “Think Batman and Catwoman,” he said eventually.

            Sarah snorted. “I guess that explains some of it,” she said. “I wouldn’t have thought he’d meet somebody like you through his _work_ , but if you were—”

            Kobin scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “Yeah, I’m a civilian contractor with Paladin,” he said. “Not a military guy. I promise I’m not, like, evil, though.”

            “Not if my dad’s dating you, that’s for sure,” Sarah agreed with a bright smile. “So you really don’t have any ideas for what to get him?”

            “Not for a proper gift. I haven’t really celebrated Christmas with anyone in—a while. And he’s not easy to shop for.”

            “Yeah, that’s true,” Sarah said meditatively. “Well, let’s just window-shop for a while. Maybe we’ll get an idea. By the way, I wanted to thank you.”

            “Huh?” Andriy responded intelligently.

            “So,” Sarah said. “You might have noticed that my dad is kind of hard to communicate with.”

            Kobin chuckled. “He certainly never mentioned his daughter was that good at understatement,” he grinned.

            Sarah stuck her tongue out at him. “Anyway, I’m kind of dating a girl, and I was trying to figure out the best way to break it to him, since I thought—you know, military and all, and he’s always been a bit—strait-laced.”

            “Ha!” Kobin couldn’t stop himself from exploding with laughter at that. “Yeah, he kinda comes across that way until you get his pants—uh.”

            “I do _not_ need to know,” Sarah said firmly. “Anyways, yes, until I found you, I was having a really hard time figuring out how to tell him. So thank you.”

            She smiled at him, and Andriy suddenly realized that Sam wasn’t the only one he needed a Christmas gift for.

* * *

            Grim’s phone rang, and she paused in the middle of packing her suitcase to answer it. “Kobin,” she said, somewhat surprised. “What is it?”

            “Heya, Grim. Listen, I need a favor.”

            “Is it illegal?”

            “Nope.” He sounded both embarrassed and slightly manic, which presumably meant things weren’t going too badly with Sam. “It’s just—can you get something to me? I’m spending Christmas with Fish—” Grim couldn’t resist a grin and a fist-pump at that “—and I need a present for his daughter. There should be an old leather case, uh, I wanna say it’s under my bed? Shouldn’t be hard to find. It’s got ‘S.L.’ monogrammed on it, so you’ll know it.”

            “All right.” Grim looked around her room. Her packing was nearly done. “I’ll send Maers with it, she’s heading your direction in a few hours. Is that all right?”

            “Thanks,” Kobin said. “Oh, and by the way, I think I oughta get a cut of that bet, Grim.”

            She paused for a heartbeat, then realized that the pause itself had given her away. “Do you have a good reason?”

            “Yeah, cause I’m a bucket of nerves,” Kobin shot back. “Besides, you can afford a twenty percent reduction. You must have got great odds. Literally no one else would’ve bet on me and Sam spending Christmas together. Fuck, I’d have bet against that.”

            “Did you?” Grim asked pointedly.

            He snorted. “Not quite. Conflict of interest, Grim. I do have some standards.”

            “You can have ten percent.”

            “I’ll take it, if you tell Maers to hurry.”

            “Done.”

            “Pleasure doing business with you.” He hung up. Grim looked speculatively down at her phone before slipping it back into her pocket and going to find Maers.

* * *

            Sam woke up at six a.m. on Christmas morning, and for one dizzy moment, he didn’t know where he was. The lump in the bed beside him couldn’t be Regan, could it? He poked the lump, and Andriy Kobin rolled over with a sleepy mumble and put his arms around him, then started drooling onto his chest.

            Lying back, he had to laugh. Gingerly, he put a hand on Andriy’s head, ruffled the short, wiry hair. When was the last time he’d actually woken up next to someone like this? All the boundaries of his life were collapsing in on themselves, and, somehow, Sam didn’t care at all. He leaned over and kissed the top of Kobin’s head, and Andriy mumbled something else and snuggled into him. Sam, who had been considering getting up for coffee, decided to wait for a while.

            He drowsed in and out of wakefulness, which also wasn’t an experience he’d had for some years. After what was probably an hour or two, the door opened, and Sarah peeked in, wearing her dressing gown and holding a cup of steaming coffee. “Dad, are you guys—oh, sorry.”

            Andriy yawned and opened his eyes. “I smell coffee,” he said, sitting up.

            “You _are_ wearing clothes, right?” Sarah asked.

            Sam, who was suddenly not sure, was relieved when Kobin nodded. “Pajama pants,” he said, with another yawn. “Too hot for a shirt, sorry.”

            “I made a lot of coffee,” Sarah continued. “And I put all the presents under the tree. Dad, I thought you were going to do that.”

            Sam coughed embarrassedly. He _had_ been going to do it, and had gotten as far as putting the presents onto the hall table, when he’d been ambushed by Andriy.

            “My fault,” Kobin grinned wickedly. “I distracted him.”

            “Oookay, that’s enough information,” Sarah said. “So who wants coffee and presents?”

            “Are there donuts, too?” Kobin asked hopefully.

            “Yep, picked some up yesterday,” Sarah said.

            “Fuckin’ fantastic,” Andriy said happily. “You got a microwave? You know if you stick them in for eight seconds they get all fluffy and amazing?”

            “I did not know that,” Sarah said. “Maybe you can get my dad to eat them, then. His idea of a balanced breakfast is coffee and more coffee.”

            “I’m good at getting him to eat things,” Kobin said, with a brilliant smile, and just enough of a hint of wickedness in his grin that Sam honestly could not tell if the statement was intended as a double entendre.

            They headed out into the living room for coffee and donuts. Andriy took six of the dozen donuts, piled them onto a single plate, and shoved them into the microwave, from which they were rescued after thirty seconds melted together into a pile of colored goo. “I think you set it for eight minutes instead of eight seconds,” Sarah said amusedly.

            Andriy waved a hand. “They’re still edible,” he said, promptly starting to shove what was probably half a jelly donut mixed with a chocolate donut into his mouth. “Ouch,” he mumbled. “But a little bit hot.”

            “Once you’ve finished burning your mouth, let’s open the presents,” Sarah said. “Dad, why don’t you hand them all out?”

            Sam nodded, heading over to the tree. He hadn’t looked carefully the night before, but he got the sense that there were more presents now than there had been then. “Sarah, why don’t you go first?” he said, handing her the three presents.

            “Sure,” she said. The first two presents were a video game and a fantasy book that Sam had known she’d been wanting for a while. The third present, sloppily wrapped and covered in tape, drove Andriy to his feet and away from the half-eaten pile of melted donut. “Uh, sorry, I’m not so good at wrapping,” he said.

            “It’s fine,” Sarah answered. “It just gets ripped apart anyway.”

            True to her statement, she ripped open the paper to reveal a slim, worn, black case. Sam frowned. The simple case didn’t look like something bought at a shopping mall. Andriy fidgeted as Sarah took the lid off and drew in a sharp breath. “Oh,” she breathed. “It’s lovely, Andriy, thank you.”

            “I, uh,” said Kobin, still stammering, as Sarah lifted the thin silver chain out of the box. “I’m glad you like it.”

            The silver necklace was obviously not new; the back of the unfurling rosebud was worn, and there was tarnish lining the cracks where it had been difficult to polish. “Where did you find this?” Sam asked with interest as he helped Sarah fasten it around her neck.

            “Oh, uh,” said Kobin. “It, uh, kind of belonged to my mother. But I mean, I can’t wear it, and I just thought—fuck, it’s Christmas, you know, and she probably wouldn’t want it to be stuck in a box forever, and here I am having Christmas for the first time in years cause of you guys and, uh—look, I just. Sorry.”

            There was a brief pause, and he shuffled, stuck his hands in his pockets, and stared out the window.

            “Wow,” Sarah said, after another minute. “Thanks, Andriy. I love it.” She reached out, took his hand, and squeezed. “Why don’t you open your presents next?”

            “Can I have a drink first?” Kobin asked, laughing, but Sam could hear his voice was shaking slightly.

            “Just have more coffee,” Sam suggested.

            “Look, man, if you think coffee has any effect on me—” he cut himself off.

            “Yeah, caffeine tends to make me sleepy for some reason,” Sarah agreed, then seemed to notice they were both staring at her. “What?”

            Kobin covered his mouth, trying not to giggle. “I just have a high tolerance for stimulants and shit,” he said, glancing quickly over to Sam, but Sam had to laugh as well. “Okay, okay, just give me the presents before I embarrass myself more.”

            “All right.” Sam went over to the tree again. “This one is practical, this one is—less practical—and this is from Sarah.”

            “You got me two things, man? Shit, you did not have to do that.”

            “Believe me, the practical one is for my benefit as well as yours. Here.”

            Kobin glanced back and forth to Sarah and Sam before starting to tear into the wrapping paper on the ‘practical’ gift. He smirked when he saw it. “C’mon, Fish, you don’t really expect me to wear this, do you?”

            “What is it?” Sarah asked curiously.

            “Andriy and I have a slight disagreement about what kind of body armor is appropriate for combat situations,” Sam responded. “And, yeah, I expect you to not go under heavy fire in dragon skin again.”

            “I could just shove this into my closet and never wear it,” Kobin pointed out.

            “You could,” Sam said. “I don’t think you’re going to.”

            “How come?”

            Sam attempted a wounded look. “Because it is a gift. From your boyfriend. Sentiment, Andriy.”

            Kobin opened and shut his mouth. “That is fighting _fuckin_ ’ dirty, Fish.”

            “Worth it for you to survive for another year.”

            Andriy rolled his eyes. “All right, all right. Sarochka, your dad cheats.”

            “Yep,” Sarah agreed. “What?” she said, as Sam gave her another look. “You do.”

            “Just open the rest of your presents, Andriy,” Sam said.

            “All right, let’s see what I got from Sarah. I bet it’s not _practical_.”

            “Well, it’s kind of practical,” Sarah said, as Kobin unwrapped it and then gave a gleeful yelp.

            “This is fuckin’ _beautiful_!” he exclaimed, unfolding a shirt that made Sam groan and Sarah giggle.

            “I noticed you have a thing for kind of…loud clothing,” she said.

            “Did you really need to get him the clothing equivalent of a death metal concert, Sarah? I have to look at him in that thing.” It looked as though three different pieces of entirely different cloth had been sewed together into one hellish piece of clothing. One sleeve was covered in prints of red and green reindeer, while the other had pink snowmen in sunglasses, and the main body of it was just squiggles, as far as Sam could tell—rainbow-colored squiggles with bits of mistletoe in between them.

            “I’m putting this on right now,” Kobin said with an evil grin.

            “Oh, god, no,” Sam said.

            “Oh, god, yes.” Andriy’s easy grin slid onto his face following the quick upward quirk of his eyebrows, and Sam groaned and covered his eyes. When he looked up again, Andriy was already pulling it on. “So, how do I look?”

            “Really, really awful.” And yet, the shirt suited him, in a weird way. Sam, for once giving into impulse, leaned forward, caught the front of his shirt, and kissed him on the mouth.

            “Convincing reaction,” Andriy smirked as Sam pulled back. “Maybe I better wear this around Paladin all the time.”

            Sam sighed. “Here, open your other present,” he said. “And be careful with this one.”

            “I’m always careful.” But Kobin did handle the long, thin package somewhat more gently than he’d handled the others, turning it around in his hands as he unwrapped it. “Holy shit! Is this—”

            “There’s no ammo. It’s more for decoration, I guess,” Sam said, rubbing the back of his head.

            “What is it?” Sarah asked curiously. “I mean, it’s a gun. Obviously. But—”

            “It is a Colt Model 1839 Patterson Revolving Cylinder Percussion Carbine,” Andriy responded lovingly. “Pretty fuckin’ rare. Not a great gun functionally, but a really cool one. This is the shit, man, seriously. I am so goddamn happy right now. Thanks, Fish.”

            “You’re welcome,” Sam said in embarrassment.

            “Okay, Dad, your turn for presents now,” Sarah said. “You don’t get to duck out anymore.” She headed over to the tree and came back with two packages that she put in his lap. “Here you go.”

            Sarah had put both of her presents into one package, which Sam opened first. A silly tie, which made him smile, and a sillier spy novel, which made him chuckle gently. “I figure you’ll get a kick out of this,” she said with a smile. “What with it all being wrong.”

            “Thanks, kiddo,” he said, squeezing her shoulder briefly, before turning to the final package. Andriy fidgeted nervously as he tore through the wrapping paper of the flat package and slid it out onto his knees.

            It was a framed photograph, clearly recently taken. Sarah grinned at the camera from in front of one of those stock, blue backgrounds that every photographer seemed to have. She looked absurdly happy, and Sam found himself smiling instinctively in response. “Thank you,” he said to Andriy.

            “I want you to know, it was all his idea,” Sarah put in. “He picked out the frame, and he nearly started arguing with the photographer over the pose. There’s another photo, too.”

            “Oh, uh, but you know, that was the better one,” Kobin said, eyes darting to the side.

            “Andriy, show him,” Sarah scolded. “You’d better have put it somewhere safe, I told you.”

            “Yeah, it’s fine, I left it under the coffee table. But really, this is a terrible photo, I am warning you, Fish.”

            “Let me see it,” Sam said, starting to get unusually curious.

            Andriy gave a sharp sigh, but reached carefully under the coffee table and pulled out a plastic bag. Opening it, he slid out another photograph, taken in front of the same blue background. Sarah’s face was tipped to the side a little in this one, and her grin had morphed into full-blown laughter, as she stared up and back at Andriy, who was smiling awkwardly in-frame, two fingers held up to give her rabbit ears. It was almost a candid shot, lacking most of the pose of the first one; a few trails of motion blur obscured some of Sarah’s outlying hair swinging about her shoulders.

            “It’s kinda shitty,” Andriy said embarrassedly. “But Sarochka thought you’d like one with both of us, so I included it…”

            Sam stared at the frozen moment. According to his gut, Sarah and Andriy were the last two people in the world who should have met. They represented such fundamentally different parts of his life. And yet—if it weren’t for Sarah, he wouldn’t know Andriy, in a weird kind of way. Seeing them laughing together, enjoying themselves together made his stomach turn over strangely, but it wasn’t bad.

            “What do you think, Dad?” Sarah asked.

            “I like it,” he said.

            “See?” She turned triumphantly to Andriy, who ran a nervous hand through his hair.

            “Cool,” he said, not quite catching Sam’s gaze.

            “Let’s get this one framed as well,” Sam said decisively.

            “Aw man, I look so shitty in it,” Andriy protested.

            “I like it,” Sam said again, more firmly, and Andriy went quiet, but he was smiling.

            After a minute, just when things were starting to feel awkward, he got to his feet again. “Anybody want more coffee? Or a White Russian, I could go for another White Russian. Ah, fuck.” He’d brushed against the chair with the top of his thigh, which Sam had vaguely noticed he’d been favoring for a week or two.

            “New tattoo?” Sam asked sympathetically.

            “Uh,” Andriy paused and blinked. “Yeah?”

            “I think I saw that one. Is that the one for Dad?” Sarah put in.

            “What?” said Sam.

            Kobin looked from one of them to the other. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he said after a minute.

            “What?” said Sam again, thoroughly confused now, and Andriy pulled up the corner of the shirt and pulled down the side of his pajama pants to reveal a boney thigh with a red blob on it that Sam had vaguely noticed the last few times the two of them had fallen into bed together. “It—looks like a heart?” Sam said.

            Andriy put a hand to his forehead. “Oh my fucking god,” he said. “I thought you were too fuckin’ embarrassed to say anything or something.”

            “Dad,” Sarah said. “It’s a heart with a _fishhook_ through it.”

            Sam peered more closely. “Huh,” he said. “I guess I didn’t look closely enough. But what does that—”

            “Oh my _god_ , Dad,” Sarah put in, starting to giggle. “Our last name is _Fisher_. So—you know, if it’s a _heart_ with a _fishhook_ through it—”

            “I did not think I was being particularly subtle,” Andriy added.

            “Oh,” said Sam, feeling foolish.

            “Is it, um, do you like it? Now that you, uh, are aware of the fact that it exists?”

            Sam’s face was warm, and he decided not to look at Sarah. Instead he got to his feet, and headed across the room to Andriy. “Yeah,” he said, with a slight smile. “I do.” He pulled his boyfriend into a slightly embarrassed hug, not without a glance back at Sarah, who coughed pointedly and indicated the ceilng with a wicked grin.

            Sam sighed. “You put up mistletoe, didn’t you, Sarah?”

            “Yeah, I did.”

            “I’m not the only one in this family who cheats—” Sam started to say, and then Andriy had him around the waist and was trying to turn him. Startled, he stared at the other man, who gave him a frown.            

            “Mistletoe, man, I don’t make the rules. And I’m not part of this family. I don’t cheat.”

            It was a very unusual feeling for Sam to be giving up control, even for an instant, but he tried to follow the movement of Andriy’s muscles, let himself be tugged bacwkward. For one long—and strangely heart-stopping—moment, he was falling, and then he landed in Andriy’s arms. He was bent over backwards, and Kobin was supporting his weight on his back leg as he leaned over and planted a kiss on Sam’s lips. There was a brief moment where Sam felt a tongue sweeping through his mouth, but before he could object to making out in front of his daughter, it was gone, and he was being set back on his feet.

            Sam chuckled. “Yeah, you do,” he said, giving Andriy’s shoulder a squeeze. “And—yeah, you are.”

            Truth be told, Sam would have been content with nothing for Christmas but the look on Andriy’s face when he processed the last statement.

**Author's Note:**

> For my readers who are not familiar with Russian diminutives, the reason Andriy suddenly catches himself and looks chagrined halfway through the fic is that he refers to Sarah as "Sarochka", which is the affectionate diminutive--he's basically talking to her as if they're related, and he's concerned that Sam (who does speak Russian) will notice and get angry.


End file.
